The danger posed by terrorists seeking to transport explosives into or through crowded public places, such as passenger terminals, is well known. There has been a public awareness of this particularly since the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.
While many systems have been introduced to effectively screen large pieces of luggage, such as suitcases, prior to loading onto aircraft or other forms of transportation, the inspection of personal affects, such as back packs and handbags, is particularly problematic. This is especially so where an initial manual inspection is performed on a desk or table placed at an entry point into closed public places, such as airport terminals, train stations, theaters, government offices, and many other public and private premises. As is well know, if a terrorist seeks to detonate an explosive device in a crowded place, his intention may be to smuggle the device deep into the premises so as to detonate the device so as to cause maximum casualties. In the event that the device is discovered during a manual inspection of his personal effects by a security guard, there are no satisfactory solutions that can effectively reduce the number of casualties and the damage to the immediate environment, should the bomb detonate after discovery.
The prior art includes many different types of apparatus for attenuating the effect of an explosion in a confined space including the following US patents: U.S. Pat. No. 6,644,165 entitled “Explosion Containment Vessel;” U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,931 entitled “Blast Attenuating Containers;” U.S. Pat. No. 6,019,237 entitled “Modified Container Using Inner Bag;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,053 entitled “High-Energy-Absorbing Enclosure For Internal Explosion Containment;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,184 entitled “Aircraft Cargo Container;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,453 entitled “Method and Apparatus for Containing and Suppressing Explosive Detonations;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,178 entitled “Container Systems For High Explosive Test Agents;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,665 entitled “Hardened Luggage Container;” U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,223 entitled “Explosive Attenuating Structure;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,258 entitled “Blast-Resistant Container;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,543,872 entitled “Blast Attenuator;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,382 entitled “Bomb Disposal Device;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,432,285 entitled “Bomb Blast Attenuator;” U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,247 entitled “Explosion Containment Device;” and U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,601 entitled “Container for Explosive Device.”
There are also various products known in the marketplace, including the semi-confined and fully confined bomb containment containers manufactured and sold by the Mistral Security Inc., of Bethesda, Md., USA. The semi-confined containers have the appearance of normal waste receptacles that might be found at any type of public facility, such as at airports and railway stations. These containers are constructed however so as to partial confine a blast therewithin, so as to direct it upwards, rather than in a 360° direction. This serves to prevent the vast majority of injuries and destruction of property that might otherwise occur. Fully confined bomb containment containers are constructed to fully confine an explosion occurring therewithin.
Even with such systems however, the person performing the manual inspection may have only seconds to act, such that manually placing a suspicious object in a semi-confined bomb containment container as described, may not be an option.